Hindsight

Sometimes I wonder if I could have and should have known that my life with D would have turned out the way that it did.  As if I blatantly ignored so many signs that I, even in some small way, deserved to have my husband cheat on me, begin using drugs, and finally disappear from our child's life. 

I know that in my relationship with D I ignored my gut feelings.  I waved off red flags.  Warnings from others.  It even caused numerous problems in my relationship with several of my friends as well as close family members.  They were worried about me.  They were concerned about D and his past.  They just wanted me to be happy, and they had serious doubts about D's ability to make this happen (at least for the rest of our lives). 

Deep down, I was a little worried too.  Unfortunately, whenever a warning bell went off in my head, my first reaction was talk to D.  No matter how upset I was, D always had a way of reassuring me that he was the "good guy" who he had always professed to be.  Looking back now I realize that he was simply giving me the answer I was looking for.  Or, more accurately, the answer that I wanted, rather than the actual truth.  The truth can sometimes be what you make it to be or simply wish it was.  And I wished and hoped that D was actually the man that he was trying to portray himself as.  And that I so desperately needed him to be.

Still, thinking back now, I still remain dumbfounded that D turned out to be the monster that he has become.  While sometimes I secretly wondered if our marriage would last, I never in all of my wildest dreams thought he would be an absent father.  I could have never imagined that he would go almost a year having virtually no contact with his child.  That he would cease paying child support.  That he would turn to a full blown life of crime and drugs. 

While D had, without a doubt, made numerous mistakes in his life, I had chalked it all up to him being young and, for lack of a better term, stupid.  I had told myself those days were long behind him.  He had sewn his wild oats.  That man didn't exist anymore. 

He was now married with a mortgage, a wife, and responsibilities.  This was the man who spent every family gathering surrounded by children.  Who held his newborn niece in his arms and exclaimed "she's perfect, Sis".  Who helped my father on our family ranch every single weekend.  Who's only wish in the world was to have a child of his own.

That was the man that I knew.  Whether D was putting on a front for those years, or whether he had truly changed, I will never know.  But that was the man I fell in love with.  That was the man I chose to marry.  That was the man whom I chose to have a child with.  And if he had been merely acting that whole time, he certainly is deserving of an Academy Award.  Because I bought it all.  The promises that he had changed.  The declarations of being a family man.  And the vows that he said to me on our wedding day.